Environmental Impact Assessments for deep-sea mining: Can we improve their future effectiveness?

Highlights

• Shortcomings in environmental impact assessments for deep-sea mining are identified.

• Recommendations are made for how to improve the science underpinning EIAs.

• Higher quality EIAs will increase their uptake by managers and their effectiveness in decision-making.

• Scientific studies are key to the EIA process, but final decision-making is a complex evaluation of environmental, social, economic and political components.

Abstract

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an important process for evaluating the effects of development, and to assist decisions to effectively manage potential deep-sea mining (DSM). However, although EIA is a widely used and accepted approach, there has been considerable debate over its effectiveness. In this paper, we summarise some of the key problems raised by previous EIA reviews, as well as examining several EIAs carried out in recent years for DSM, and highlight issues identified by management agencies. Scientific shortcomings are discussed, and recommendations provided on ways to improve performance. These include inadequate baseline data, insufficient detail of the mining operation, insufficient synthesis of data and the ecosystem approach, poor assessment and consideration of uncertainty, inadequate assessment of indirect impacts, inadequate treatment of cumulative impacts, insufficient risk assessment, and consideration of linkages between EIA and other management plans. The focus of the paper is on scientific limitations, but we also consider some aspects of their application to elements of process and policy.

Introduction

The carrying out of environmental impact assessments (EIAs) is a general obligation under customary international law [51], [93] and under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, Articles 165(2) d, f, h and 206), reflected in Article 6 of the European Treaty. In the Area (beyond national jurisdiction), EIAs are required to be carried out for mineral exploration activities exceeding the dimensions of research, for pilot mining and for exploitation applications (1994 Implementing Agreement, ISA mining codes, see also sources in [52]. EIAs form an integral process in environmental management [35], [66], [73] and are now an accepted part of any industrial project development. EIA is the evaluation of the effects likely to arise from a major project that could significantly affect the environment [35]. It is a systematic process for considering environmental impacts prior to a decision being taken on whether or not a proposal for a development should proceed. Hence, the most immediate purpose of the EIA process, arising directly from these functions, is to supply decision makers with an indication of the likely environmental consequences and effects of their actions-which in turn should ensure development only proceeds in an acceptable manner [54]. The use of EIAs in decision-making is growing significantly, as is the range of decision-types for which it is now used.

Despite a substantial growth in available literature, there is a large gap between the best practice thinking represented in the research literature, and the application of this thought to EIA in practice [66]. There are three areas of general concern that are often repeated in various reviews of EIAs (e.g., [78]): 1) Theoretical grounding - Is there a clear sense of purpose of the EIA process, and what it comprises? 2) Quality – what is good practice, how is quality judged, how much guidance exists? 3) Effectiveness – how well is the process achieving its goals? These three aspects are linked, but ultimately the value of an EIA is in whether it has been used effectively by environmental managers in evaluating and making decisions about a project. The effectiveness of EIAs and the EIA process have been the subject of a number of papers and chapters [10], [14], [17], [35], [54], [66], [74] which question how effective EIAs have been in terms of whether they are achieving the kind of outcomes that are sought, and how well the EIA performs in ensuring environmental considerations are taken into account in decision-making. Typically, these reviews have concluded that EIAs have often only had a moderate effect, with fine-tuning of proposals rather than substantive changes. One of the reasons for this is that environmental considerations are only part of the complex suite of factors that managers need to consider. Even if the EIA is doing a good job at presenting the environmental considerations, the fact that decision-makers are working in a political environment, can mean EIAs are considered, but often don’t have any basis for actually preventing a development, and act more as a decision-aiding rather than decision-making tool [54].

These reviews and critiques of EIAs and the EIA process are largely based on terrestrial or coastal proposals and projects. The process and form of EIAs for seabed mining, and in the deep-sea in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) in particular, is not yet fully developed [20], [30], [31], and hence there is an opportunity at an early stage to evaluate whether lessons can be learnt from past EIAs and applied to improve their effectiveness as the industry develops. Although the process is largely the same as in other industrial projects [20], [56], it is important to consider what is different about deep-sea mining that has a bearing on the content or nature of the EIA, and which may help focus the current development of the EIA process as part of developing regulations for the exploitation of deep-sea minerals [50], [80].

A key issue for any deep seabed mining project is the limited knowledge in general of the deep-sea environment. The structure and function of such ecosystems is poorly understood [5], [87] as are the spatial scales at which processes operate [39], [64], [76]. In addition, there is limited knowledge of the actual nature and extent of mining impacts, especially given the large spatial and long timescales of potential mining operations (with mining technology not well developed). While many papers have addressed potential impacts [13], [60], [65], there has to date been no disturbance on the scale of that which would occur with an actual mining operation. Hence EIA preparation and the development of environmental management plans are almost by definition working in a knowledge-poor situation, with many gaps in information for risk assessment, and high uncertainty [20].

Several published EIAs exist for proposed seabed mining projects. (1) Nautilus Minerals (Nautilus) owns a licence to mine the seabed at a hydrothermal vent field in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), using a vehicle to cut and process the material at the seabed and a riser pipe to transfer the material to a surface ship [68]. Consent for the project was granted by the government of PNG, although there was a critical review by an unsolicited third party [84]. (2) Chatham Rock Phosphate (CRP) proposed to mine phosphorite nodules from the seabed at Chatham Rise in New Zealand waters [18]. The application for consent for this project was rejected by the regulator [70]. (3) Trans Tasman Resources Ltd (TTRL) proposed to mine iron ore from the seabed at the South Taranaki Bight in the New Zealand EEZ. Consent for this project was initially refused [69], then ultimately granted [71], although an ‘alternative position’ was included in the decision record. The granting of this consent has since been overturned in 2018.

In this paper these published EIAs, are considered, along with their associated third-party critiques and government-issued decision notices, to identify key scientific short-comings that are revealed by these decisions. They are considered also in the context of discussions and publications from several workshops undertaken by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in developing components of environmental management [46], [48], [49] that have supported the development of its draft regulations for the exploitation of deep-sea minerals in the Area [50], as well as other national or regional templates and guidance for contents and structure of EIA for deep-sea mining [22], [85]. We also draw on EIAs carried out for small-scale tests of mining equipment or processes, although these are not as detailed or extensive as full mining proposal EIAs, and have not undergone the same review procedures (e.g., JOGMEC [67], Global Sea Mineral Resources (https://www.isa.org.jm/files/documents/EN/EIA/GSR/GSR-EIS.pdf), and Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (https://www.isa.org.jm/files/documents/EN/EIA/BGR/EIA_BGR.pdf). Issues related to the process of EIA have been well reviewed in recent years [35], [66] and comments have also been made in papers dealing more specifically with deep-sea mining [22], [29], [30], [58]; thus, we do not comment extensively on the EIA process, except where there is a clear link between the process and the science that is required.